It's a poopy job but somebody has to do it.
Here's my take on poop and diapers.
Poop is poop. No matter how you deal with poop, it's still poop and it's still gross. It's POOP.
So how is cloth diapering and dealing with poop?
Well, If you have a tiny baby and they are breastfed it is water soluable and not that much in quanity after the first couple weeks so you just throw the whole diaper or insert or prefold in the diaper pail and wash. No big deal. If they are formula fed like my tinies then they say you need to get most of the poop off before you wash. I don't breastfeed but even if I did, I would want to get most of the poop off anyways!
So when I change a pee diaper I put on a new cover and prefold. I take the dirty prefold still in the cover and toss the prefold into our diaper pail in the laundry room. I hang the cover up and let it air out to use again (so long as its not poopy, obviously!) Now when its poop, I take it into the bathroom and use a wipe (I use disposable wipes although there are cloth wipes and merits to both!) to toss the poop into the toilet and flush. less stink and less poop ya know? Again, take it to the pail and wash when ready. It's REALLY not that big of a deal, like I said Poop is Poop.
Diaper Pail-there are some crazy people out there who spend big bucks on a "special cloth diaper pail" Yeah whatever. Anything that traps air like a diaper genie or a special pail gets STINKY FAST! Gross! I use a flip lid tall trash can ($9) with a Planet Wise Pail Liner ($19) I have two liners. Everytime I wash diapers I wash the liner that was being used. To keep my pail FRESH I mix baking soda and a few drops of Young Living Oils Lavendar Essential Oil and sprinkle it in the bottom of the pail and liner. Thats just optional and smells nice!
Am I a cloth diaper freak and a disposable hater? Heck NO! I used disposables on Max and Stella and still use them on all 4 kids. Because I CD to save money I try really hard not to buy diapers. But we were given tons as gifts so yes, we use them! We don't impose our cloth diapering onto the nursery workers at church or the teachers at Mothers Day Out. We use disposables. If we are out and about a LOT we use disposables. If 4 kids are screaming at me and I grab a disposable, I use a disposable! Can you tell I am laid back about this people?
As for WASHING! This is why cloth diapering made me a laudry freak...I stay on top of my laundry. If you know me, you know thats kind of a big deal. MANY people wash their diapers every few days. I am sort of freakish about it and wash every day or every other day. It take 1 minute to throw a load in and nothing is easier to put away than diapers. Because I am always doing laundry I stay on top of all my other laundry too!
If you are looking into cloth diapers you might see a lot of complicated wash routines. Mine is not. But I use all cotton and hemp so natural fibers that clean easier. Our covers are PUL but they can take a laundry beating too!
I use the dial on my washer (we have a top loader btw) to go to the Cold Rinse/Hot Wash option. This cold rinse gets rid of the residue on the diapers and hot wash is sanitary. Ours does not get SUPER hot so I don't worry about my covers getting damaged. I throw in some original tide powder (this is discontinued so we will switch to original tide liquid) and let the water dissolve it. Then I throw in everything in the pail, being sure to stick down my velcro on my covers really well. That's it. When its done, I hang the covers to dry and toss all the diapers in the dryer. It's really not hard. And like I said, laundry is a poopy job but somebody has to do it.
For the record, I find dealing with your average stomach bug and vomit FAR grosser than dealing with cloth diapers!
until we got in the O.R.
